Page 73 of Worth Every Penny

“Good for you,” I deadpan, then refocus. “I’ll keep him this week if you take him Saturday night.”

“The weekend? You want me to take him for the weekend? Fuck off.”

“One night, then I’ll take him back. Come on. I’ll speak to Matt if you take Charlie for Saturday night.”

Seb tuts. “All right. I hope you have a bloody good Saturday night planned. You don’t know what I’m giving up here.”

“I hope so too,” I murmur, my mind already racing with images of Kate and all the ways I’m going to make her body mine. And how to plan a date so fucking good that any lingering doubts we should be together will fucking disappear.

I hang up to the sound of Seb chuckling down the phone, throw back the covers and head to the bathroom, where I plan on jerking off to memories of Kate coming in my arms.

22

KATE

Iwake up hornier than I’ve ever been. I’m slick between the thighs and I could have sworn I was back in the hall with Nico only a second ago. I blink, but he’s not here. I’m alone.

Was last night real? A harrowing sensation floods my veins, swiftly followed by a desperate need to crawl out of my own skin. Shame… embarrassment, whatever it is, the rush is so intense my head pounds like I’ve got another hangover.

And yet it was everything I’d hoped for and more; the strength of Nico’s arms around me, the warmth of his hard body, the sound of his voice, heavy with arousal. Fuck it, shame be damned. I want more of it. More of him… I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I check my phone.

No messages.

But then, he’s not exactly a texting kind of guy, is he? No chance of finding a ‘Good morning, sweetheart. How are you? I miss you’,kind of message from Nico Hawkston.

I pull the pillow over my head and let out a long groan. A thumping on the door to my room echoes the pounding in my head. I lift the pillow. “What?”

“Kate?” Mum’s voice is nearing hysterical, which isn’t a good sign.

The door swings open, and Mum enters in a flurry of hair rollers and green face mask, her slim physique wrapped in a pink silk dressing gown.

“Get up. This is all your fault. Nico’s run off in the night. Left a note saying he had a family emergency. But I know it was because you were so rude at dinner. Making a scene.” She slaps a hand to her forehead, her curlers shaking like Medusa’s snakes. “You’ve always been an attention-seeker, ever since you were tiny. Your father indulged you. I hold him entirely responsible for how you’ve turned out. No wonder Nico left.”

I barely hear the insults because the sound of Nico’s name repeatedly barked at me in Mum’s highly strung voice has me feeling nauseous. The truth of what happened between us last night burns in my lower belly like a spoonful of arsenic.

“I’m sure Nico genuinely had somewhere he needed to be,” I say, hoping Mum can’t hear the uncertain tremor in my voice. If I was the one with a car, I might have fled last night too.

Maybe itwasbecause of me he left, but not for the reason Mum thinks.

“Oh rubbish,” she snaps. “It was you who scared him off. I’ve never seen such bad behaviour. If you could have at least tried to put the comfort of our guests first, held your tongue for a moment…” Mum sighs like I am the most trying child in the world and she’s so hard done by purely because I exist. “If you could have been a little more accommodating, Nico might still be here.”

I blush. If Mum knew exactly how accommodating I had been last night, she would be screaming at me for being a hussy.

Loose women never get the guy. That’s what Mum thinks anyway, and it’s hard to shrug off a mother’s opinions, even when you’re in your late twenties. They cling like a bad smell.

Maybe that’s why I rarely get laid.

Another one of Mum’s opinions rears its beastly head;a man of that calibre would never be interested in you. Not seriously, at least. But those eyes… the way he looked at me… The pressure of his hard cock against my thigh—

“Are you listening to me?” Mum squawks, hands on her hips.

No, I want to say.I’m thinking of all the reasons you’d tell me the man who held me in his arms as I came last night won’t want anything more to do with me.

“Sorry,” I mumble, before rolling over and pulling the duvet up to my chin.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Mum says, bustling across the room and yanking my covers off. “Get up. We have too much to do before the guests arrive.”

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